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EnerplatPro for Energy Technology Ventures

Technology is becoming the backbone of the oil and gas industry, says Geoffroy Paixach, Founder and President of EnerplatPro (www.enerplatpro.com).

EnerplatPro is an independent service company in the Upstream Oil and Gas segment. Its new partnership program leverages a worldwide network of independent industry consultants and technology companies. The overall objective is to simultaneously propose effective route to market for the technology startups while creating a gateway to innovation for the large service companies and operators.

Startups Lead Energy Technology Ventures

Nobody can ignore the contribution of technology in recent developments:

unconventionals

deep off-shore

mature field development

enhanced oil recovery

These technologies are not only coming from the big players, but there is a global trend where an ever growing number of small, medium-sized companies, even startups, are bringing innovation.

EnerplatPro Clears Obstacles to Innovation

The challenge of technology companies is the cost, and the time it takes to bring to market their products and services. End users have the difficulty to identify, assess, and deploy these new technologies.

Matchmaker for Energy Technology Ventures

We connect innovative technologies with energy end users. We have developed a platform that enables end users to post a request for a specific technology. This request is then matched to potential technologies.

Why EnerplatPro

EnerPlatPro is more than a platform. It’s a global network of technical associates, with extensive oil and gas experience. We are independent. We will treat your request confidentially, and we are cost effective.

EnerPlatPro is connecting innovative technology to the oil and gas industry.

To get started, you can register online or contact one of our many associates and start the conversation.

Ethanol Mandate and Gas Prices | Conversations with T. Boone Pickens

What's happened within the ethanol laws in this country?

T Boone Pickens:

A law passed and it was poorly written. Never did we imagine at the time the ethanol law came into being that we were gonna have our oil and gas industry develop all of the oil and gas that they have in the United States. It's that simple.

If you're gonna use ethanol, it should never gone above 10%. But you had gasoline demand go down and you’re continuing to raise the overall blend of ethanol into the gasoline fuel.

Yeah, that's a great example because you've got on one hand this ethanol law where you're requiring an amount of an ethanol be blended in. On the other hand you got cafe standards which have actually been effective at reducing our overall gasoline demand. Well those two things, when they happen at the same time, lead you to real world impact to consumers at home if this doesn't get fixed.

T Boone Pickens:

If it ain't fixed, you're gonna see 50 cents a gallon increase in the price of gasoline.

Brian Bradshaw:

So this is a great example like you said of piecemeal legislation, of different parts of government handling different pieces of the energy legislation.

T Boone Pickens:

Yeah, if you want a real quick fix, it would be if the government said, "Okay, take out the gasoline. Take out the ethanol and switch everything over to natural gas." It would be 30% cleaner and it would be half the price. Would that be a good fix? It would be that day.

Brian Bradshaw:

Well, so the ethanol law, the ethanol RIN credits, it's a law that has to get fixed. There is proposed legislation out there to fix it, but it's only a one year patch. I mean you need to permanently fix this law. And there's ways to do that and, and it should be easy to do, but I guess in Washington nothing is ever easy.

Government needs to be in on the renaissance | Conversations with T. Boone Pickens

(video transcript)

Brian Bradshaw

So with all this success that the US industry have had in creating this renaissance, what do you see is the role of government as we go forward?Mr. Pickens

Be careful. (Chuckles). Be careful. But government needs to understand what has happened. They need to be in on the renaissance not just uh, sitting on the sideline watching what happens. We still need an energy plan in America. We're the only country in the world without an energy plan.

Now, we become or getting ready to be the most important energy user and producer in the world. You need to have a plan. Uh, I'm not even sure in government who is responsible for energy.

Brian Bradshaw

... it sounds like the best thing they can do is just stay out of the way, because in a lot of cases, they can make more problems than they solve.

Mr. Pickens

...one good thing the government did for us were cafe standards that uh, that, that has helped. We get greater mileage out of the... Out of the cars that we're buying and all. That's good. And as when you're here with oil prices, compared to the rest of the world we're 10, 15% cheaper than the rest of the world.

... So you're 75 to 50% cheaper for a natural gas. And gasoline is a good I think, when done it's about half the price of the rest of the world...

...I did give them credit for cafe standards but I, I'd scratch my head where I could give them credit for anything else. But, if you go back and look... Go back to the Arab embargo…

Industrial videos is a listing of business videos about the energy industries, oil and gas, products or services produced in warehouses or in use on construction sites or commercial application such as custom carrying cases, industrial shipping containers and specialty metals companies.

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Is It Time to Update Our Energy Policies? | Conversations with T. Boone Pickens

Why It’s Illegal to Export Oil

Today, something that we're reading more and more about, that's becoming a front page news issue is this idea of oil export out of this country. I think a lot of people don't understand the fact that it's actually illegal to export oil from this country. Is that correct?

T. Boone Pickens:

Against the law, yes. That was a law that was developed after the Arab embargo in '73, and should be looked at. There are other laws that were developed at that time, because it panicked all of us here at the United States. The gasoline prices went up, long lines at the filling stations, you know, one thing right after another. So my gosh, we gotta do something about this. We don't ever export any oil. We didn't believe then that we would ever have oil like we do today.

Demand for a North American Alliance

Brian Bradshaw:

For the last 30 years even though this thing might not really made sense, it did matter. We were importing so much oil, our production base wasn't really growing.

Some of that oil comes from friendly countries. About half of the nine million barrels we import comes from Canada and Mexico. The other four or four and a half million comes really from OPEC, not friendly.

So here we are starting to have options develop for this country. My advice is to produce more oil in the United States and Canada and Mexico, combined. I would like to see a North American energy alliance developed which would bring those three countries together.

It would have great opportunities for all three countries in the alliance.

Brian Bradshaw:

So 40 years ago we passed all these laws, like you mentioned: the SPR, price controls, rationing, the oil export ban and the windfall profits tax. Over time, each one of these things has either fallen off or been repealed with the SPR still in place of course. But this oil export ban still remains. No one has really gone back and looked at it until now, until it's become relevant again.

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Energy Video Series produced for PickensPlan, Conversations with T. Boone Pickens is an educational video series on energy related topics from Saudi Arabia to Natural Gas, Electric Cars, Solar & Water to American Plans for Energy Policy.

Video proFile® page is a profile for each video. Using analytic tools, we optimize its title, description and tags to match your video message to relevant search keywords and phrases, and submit them to Google, Bing and Yahoo for indexing.

Oil and Gas - Property Accounting Types

I am Jon Gwynn. I am David Hill, Tax Manager.

Today we're going to talk a little bit about oil and gas depletion both from a U.S. GAAP perspective as well as a tax perspective. I am the audit director for the firm, so I'll talk a little bit about the two U.S. GAAP methods that are accepted. They are called successful efforts and full cost and David will talk a little about the tax methods.

Right. Now for the tax methods there are two types, there is percentage depletion and there is cost depletion.

Under U.S. GAAP there are two generally accepted methods to account for oil and gas properties, successful efforts and full cost. So, as a small business if you are just starting to decide on which method to use, there are a bunch of different ideas that go into choosing the method.

Full cost is probably the easiest to account for, it doesn't take a lot of time, it groups all of your properties together by continent or a region. Successful efforts you have to go to a lower level of accounting forward by well, property, fields.

So if you have the resources to do the accounting forward I would recommend successful efforts. One of the main reasons for that is if we ever do adopt IFRS successful efforts right now is the most closely aligned with companies that are doing IFRS accounting.

A couple of other considerations to look into. Full cost method, if you sell properties or if you drill a dry hole then you don't get necessarily a benefit out of it on your income statement, it all just remains within that property group. So there is no real P&L impact to it.

Okay, I am going to talk about the tax methods for deducting depletion. Jon covered earlier the cost method, and that is also allowed for tax, but we use a little bit different base versus the same formula. That's allowable method, and there is also another one percentage depletion. This is allowed by Congress and this is available for people who own property in the U.S. in your own economic interest. It's not available if you own a refinery or you are a retailer.

Now what this is, is it's deduction is a 15% of your gross proceeds. And what this does is it gives you that deduction in tax return, which helps minimize your tax liability. It is subject to limits though, one is it's done on a property by property basis and you can't create a loss with depletion, so is that 100% of all your taxable income.

Now the other one is the 65% and this is for everything you do not just oil and gas. In this scenario you can't take it below that level and that's the only two limitations for percentage depletion on your tax return.

So these are some of the ideas we want to give you on how to account for your oil and gas properties and the way to do depletion.

If you have any questions or need us to help you out in any way please give us a call, we're at PriceKubecka.

For almost two decades, the PriceKubecka Dallas CPA firm has been providing professional tax, audit, and accounting solutions, strategies and assistance for businesses in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex and other regional cities. Our team includes seasoned professionals that bring experience from both the private sector and larger, national CPA firms. This synergy of experience enables us to provide unparalleled expertise and specialization to large firms and small businesses alike — all with the personalized attention and responsiveness you deserve.

PriceKubecka is a professional, strategy-driven CPA accounting firm with the know-how to improve profitability and take the anxiety out of tax, audit and accounting issues. We focus on meeting the accounting, tax and auditing needs of companies on the move — like yours — ensuring your financial situation is in line with your overall business strategy. Let us provide your business the peace of mind it needs to flourish.

Be in charge and in control of your positioning

Through powerful examples and “I’m glad that didn’t happen to me” stories, you will learn how better to keep compliant in today’s regulated environment, as well as to better protect yourself and your company from outside forces that could do you harm.

Henry Harrison is an entrepreneur from Dallas Texas that has started and acquired over a dozen companies, across a variety of industries. Henry and his partners owned a securities firm and started an Oil and Gas company which in fewer than 3 years raised $500 million from investors and $300 million from a joint venture partner. The business grew to over A Billion Dollars in value and over 100 employees. During the 2009 financial crisis and natural gas price collapse, the Securities and Commission took over their company and three years later the Justice Department indicted them. This resulted in a 6 year legal Odyssey which led to Henry spending over a year in Federal Prison.

Henry Harrison

…You're shaking hands with the owner of a huge oil company, one of American's wealthiest men and a billionaire, and he's just agreed to advance your company three hundred million dollars in a joint venture, when he says, congratulations you're going to be a very wealthy man.

… We're going to cover critical leadership strategies to better help you protect your business for when the pressure is really on. Our story starts out sounding like another huge entrepreneurial success.

You found an oil and gas company, right in the beginning of this country's shale oil and gas boom and it grows like crazy. In three years it's worth over 2 billion dollars. …You've got a hundred full time employees in the office, another two hundred land men out on the field. You're going out on site with those huge derricks.

You've acquired over three hundred thousand acres, and when you're on site they are drilling down eight to ten thousand feet hitting big boomer wells. You're getting reports in the office of another hit. It's an exciting time. You're company is growing….

Five years later, you're getting your picture taken, when the photographer, he grunts, "Don't smile. This is your mug shot." You may be facing years in federal prison.

…he tells you that the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC…has gotten a restraining order, taken over your company, frozen your bank accounts, frozen your assets, and sued you for fraud. Then you learn that the public relations department announced nationally that you have masterminded a massive Ponzi scheme to the tune of half a billion dollars.

It's blasted all across the country. It's on Reuters, it's on Bloomberg. …

…It’s all over the Internet…You're getting emails, calls from friends, family wondering what in the world is going on…they're giving interviews for the nightly news, including posting pictures they had taken from your office earlier that morning. You know it's going to be front page news in the newspaper the next day….The best thing that happened then was Michael Jackson died and so that was front page news…. (laugh)

And he hands you a court document and across the top in big bold letters, it says the United States of America versus you. The United States of America versus Henry Harrison? That's me.

…You ever want to feel small, feel like you're up against Godzilla with a pea shooter? That's what that feels like.

You ever have something happen to you and you just can't believe it's happening it's so surreal, and it just continues month after month, not knowing when it's going to end?

...you're roaming around like usual but absolutely nothing is normal…your lawyers and the government are telling you if you go to a trial in front of a jury and you lose, you're going to get decades, up to 200 years, life, in prison. It's goodbye to everything, spouse, family, friends, everything gone.

1 out of 35 people in this country…is either on parole, on probation or in prison…1 out of 5 is a convicted felon…So many people end up prison because they get caught up in what's called a conspiracy because the people they're involved with, the people they're around…people that point the finger at them. Something happens on your watch that the government thinks you should have known about…

…I have been through a four year legal battle, FINRA attacking us …, the lawyers that took over the company suing us, the SEC suing us, and the justice department indicting us. ….

…There may be a target on your back and you don't even know it. Let's take this time to learn from my failure, my heartache, my pain, how to better protect your business.

…My hope is by sharing these critical strategies, it will better help you protect your business because none of us in the room have malintent, none of us and we all want to protect our business, including our homes, our health, our financial welfare, our children.

You must be in charge and in control of your positioning.

…In success your lawyers, your friends, your advisers, they're all sharing that success and go up with you. In failure, typically, it's the business leaders that bear the brunt of that because they've accepted the responsibility...

…everyone pays because they feel sorry for you. So, a little tip, if you ever want some free meals you just go to prison for a while. (Laughs)

…The lessons boil down to three critical leadership strategies to better help you protect your business for when the pressure is on…